Methods of tracking, managing, marketing and leasing rental space are traditionally highly decentralized, with the potential for the dissemination of incomplete, stale or inaccurate information. A building owner or manager may write a description of the space and place advertisements in newspapers or trade journals.
Alternatively, the owner or manager may contact one or more leasing agents for help. The leasing agent may obtain information about the space from the manager or owner and enter the information into his or her own personal database. The leasing agent may augment the information by traveling to the space and taking pictures or making notes as to the features of the space.
In general, the real estate leasing business is highly competitive and real estate agents often do not share information. Often one agent who goes to view a leasing space will keep any additional information that he has collected in his or her own personal files without sharing that information with other agents.
In addition, real estate agents often receive requests for rental space from third party rental space users. As with rental spaces, the agents may share some information about potential renters, but keep other information for their own personal use.
In order to match rental spaces with users, a rental agent will often prepare and send rental proposals to users containing whatever limited information the agent may have. Users often receive multiple proposals for various competing rental spaces from different agents. Users may accept a space that is less than ideal because of the differences in available information.
While present methods of presenting real estate information to users works relatively well, the inherent differences in the availability and accuracy of information often works to the detriment of the building owner or manager. Accordingly, a need exists for a method of presenting information to potential renters that allows more control by the building owner or manager.